Chasing the scent of Love, Truth, Beauty, and Mirth, wherever it may lead.

Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Preparing for Trump

The Practice of Dispassion

As the
fateful coronation...er, I mean, inauguration of Donald J. Trump grows ever
closer, I realize I must find a way to keep my wits in the spray of hostility
and intimidation coming from the other side, whose triumph reminds me of an old
saying, “The only thing worse than a sore loser is a sore winner.”

But for
my own good I have begun the practice of dispassion in dealing with people who
attack me. I need to disarm my own buttons.

I’ve been
taking to leaving comments to articles I read online. In an article in the Jan.
9 web issue of The Federalist, writer Julie Kelly proposes that “alarmist”
climate-change scientists are “the real deniers” and will soon get their
comeuppance for all their fake science funded by government grants.

The
glee-tinged threat is that they’ll all lose their jobs when Trump cancels their
phony research projects.

I felt
compelled to leave a comment. There were already a couple hundred posted, so my
impact would obviously be negligible, but I did it anyway, saying that even if
you don’t accept climate change there can’t be much doubt that human activity
has impacted the planet in a negative way and we really ought to stop doing it.

I thought
that was a fairly dispassionate reply.

So far
I’ve been jumped by five different thugs...I mean, readers. One suggested that
if I don’t like it on this planet, I should go find another, and good riddance.
I replied that I’d never said I didn’t like it here. I said I thought we ought
to quit polluting it.

Another
said climate change has always been part of Earth’s history and that humans and
animals are adapting to each other as the critters move into our neighborhoods
and live off our leavings. Therefore humans are part of an ecosystem that is
always in transformation. There is no catastrophic climate change, just natural
adaptation to ever-changing conditions.

I said
the disappearance of countless species before human “advancement” seems to
argue against that point.

The third
response pointed to the increase of life expectancy in today’s world compared
to the past, arguing that things are better now than in the days of pristine
wilderness. To that I replied that they may be better for humans in the short
term, but what price do we and our planet pay in the long term?

A fourth
informed me that conservatives are, by definition, conservationists while
people like me who belong to the “Church of Environmentalism” want
to decapitate Golden Eagles on wind farms just to brag we’ve reduced our carbon
footprints. I replied that I wish conservatives were conservationists but I
didn’t see much evidence of it, pointing to the Gulf Oil Spill, the
Exxon-Valdez, earthquakes in Wyoming, etc. I
added I thought his comment rude because he doesn’t know me and I wish no harm
to the Golden Eagles, I only want to preserve an inhabitable planet.

A fifth
called global warming “nonsense” and said there is no contradiction between
wanting to preserve the planet and denying climate change. I said that was
exactly my point, except I don’t agree global warming is nonsense but that
makes no difference if we agree to clean up the planet.

So far,
thankfully, I haven’t heard from anyone else. That doesn’t mean I won the
argument, of course, but it means I had the last word, that I didn’t make
anyone mad enough to keep it going. I’m glad for that because I don’t want to
fuel anger, either in me or in others. But I don’t want to be silent while
people are saying important things that I don’t understand, don’t agree with,
or find offensive.

My worst
enemy in this practice is the concept of “I feel strongly....” That needs to be
examined because feelings may be legitimate but they may also lead to
inaccurate assessments if they are not regarded dispassionately. That is,
without the influence of “I feel strongly.” The “I” in that construction may be
out of order, and in my case often is. Feelings are important, but when they
overtake the mind they are as dangerous as when the mind tyrannizes the
feelings.

Dispassion
is setting all duality aside to consider carefully what the other person is
saying before framing a reply. It’s attempting to understand while not
necessarily agreeing. It’s an aspect of self-control.

Many
Americans on both sides of the aisle which has become a battlement are out of
control. They see the other side as looming monsters and rise up in righteous
rage or break down in paranoid hallucinations. I understand, because I too feel
threatened by this new regime. None of us on the liberal side was ever happy
with the streak of conservatism and religious revivalism which defines a good
bit of the American character.

But the
other side was just as terrified when Obama was elected. Two sides, both
wanting to take their country back.

Which
country are we fighting over?

Unless I
take in arguments dispassionately, carefully considering what I hear while
keeping tight rein on my knee-jerk survival fears, I’ll function in a state of
war. In this case, civil war.

Is that
what we’re still fighting about? That “Northern War of Aggression” against “The
Southern Way of Life”?

I’ve
always been a conscientious objector, even before Vietnam. I
don’t want to fight, I don’t want to defend myself against my past. I’d rather
surrender with a clear conscience than live with the nightmare PTSD.

1 Comments:

Yo D- I see you're well and thinking well too I must add. Victoria Wild Child reminded me about your posts and forwarded this latest. I very much enjoyed it and agree that the process of going to and being at war are very destructive to all.....The latest way i view the situation and react I'd summarize as "resist divide and conquer but keep thinking critically- and now I'll add- dispassionately."Hugs to Jala too and I'll endeavor to read your works more often and to stay in touch. -The Lizard of landenberg